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Title: Dinners and Diners
Where and How to Dine in London
Author: Nathaniel Newnham-Davis
Release Date: September 18, 2016 [EBook #53079]
Language: English
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DINNERS AND DINERS
WHERE AND HOW TO DINE IN LONDON
BY
LIEUT.-COL. [NATHANIEL] NEWNHAM-DAVIS
London
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
OFFICE OF THE PALL MALL PUBLICATIONS
18 CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C.
1899
To all the gentlemen, the managers of the various restaurants and the masters of the culinary art, who have
assisted me in the making of this little book, I give my most grateful thanks.
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE
When the series of articles now collected in this volume was first discussed between their author and myself in the early
part of 1897, we found it a matter of no slight difficulty to determine what range they should take, and to what class of
[Pg vii]
establishments they should be confined. There is no accounting for the variety of people's tastes in the matter of eating
and drinking, and among the readers of the Pall Mall Gazette persons no doubt could be found ranging from the
Sybarite, who requires Lucullus-like banquets, to him of the simple appetite for whom little more than a dinner with
Duke Humphrey would suffice. Consequently, the choice of places to be visited had to be made in a catholic spirit, with
the necessary result that a formidably long list was prepared. In selecting Colonel Newnham-Davis to carry out this
commission for the Pall Mall Gazette, I knew I was availing myself of the services of a thoroughly experienced,
trustworthy, and capable commissioner, who would deal with the task entrusted to him in a pleasantly mixed anecdotal
and critical spirit, while at the same time supplying useful guidance to persons wanting to know where to dine and what
they would have to pay. In the following pages it will be seen how well he carried out the duty he undertook, and I am
able to add that "Dinners and Diners" had a great vogue and very wide popularity among the readers of the Pall Mall
Gazette. There were very many requests from various quarters that they should be collected into book form, and this
has now been done with some valuable additions included in the shape of recipes and other information. In these days,
when the taste for dining at restaurants is so largely on the increase, I have little doubt that the republication of these
articles will be welcomed, and that they will supply not only interesting but useful information.
The Editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette.
March 1899.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
Page
The Difficulties of Dining
xvii
CHAPTER I
Princes' Hall (Piccadilly)
1
CHAPTER II
The Cheshire Cheese
9
CHAPTER III
The Holborn
15
CHAPTER IV
Romano's
22
CHAPTER V
Simpson's
31
CHAPTER VI
The Hans Crescent Hotel
38
CHAPTER VII
The Blue Posts (Cork Street)
45
CHAPTER VIII
Verrey's (Regent Street)
51
CHAPTER IX
[Pg viii]
[Pg ix]
[Pg x]
The Hotel Cecil (the Strand)
59
CHAPTER X
Gatti's (the Strand)
67
CHAPTER XI
The Savoy (Thames Embankment)
73
Joseph at the Savoy
82
CHAPTER XII
The St. George's Café (St. Martin's Lane)
89
CHAPTER XIII
Willis's Rooms (King Street)
95
CHAPTER XIV
Le Restaurant des Gourmets (Lisle Street)
102
CHAPTER XV
The Trocadero (Shaftesbury Avenue)
108
CHAPTER XVI
The American Bar, Criterion (Piccadilly Circus) 116
CHAPTER XVII
The Hotel Continental (Regent Street)
122
CHAPTER XVIII
The Avondale (Piccadilly)
128
CHAPTER XIX
The Mercers' Hall (Cheapside)
137
CHAPTER XX
In —— Street
143
CHAPTER XXI
A Regimental Dinner (Hotel Victoria,
Northumberland Avenue)
149
CHAPTER XXII
Dieudonné's (Ryder Street)
156
CHAPTER XXIII
The Berkeley (Piccadilly)
162
[Pg xi]
[Pg xii]
CHAPTER XXIV
The Ship (Greenwich)
175
CHAPTER XXV
The House of Commons
182
CHAPTER XXVI
Earl's Court
189
CHAPTER XXVII
The Star and Garter (Richmond)
196
CHAPTER XXVIII
The Cavour (Leicester Square)
203
CHAPTER XXIX
The Café Royal (Regent Street)
209
CHAPTER XXX
Frascati's (Oxford Street)
218
CHAPTER XXXI
The Freemasons' Tavern (Great Queen Street) 224
CHAPTER XXXII
Scott's (Piccadilly Circus)
231
CHAPTER XXXIII
The East Room (Criterion, Piccadilly Circus)
237
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Monico (Shaftesbury Avenue)
247
CHAPTER XXXV
Goldstein's (Bloomfield Street)
253
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Tivoli (the Strand)
259
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Gordon Hotels (Northumberland Avenue) 266
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Queen's Guard (St. James's Palace)
272
[Pg xiii]
[Pg xiv]
[Pg xv]
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Coburg (Carlos Place)
279
CHAPTER XL
The Midland Hotel (St. Pancras)
285
CHAPTER XLI
Kettner's (Church Street)
291
CHAPTER XLII
Pagani's (Great Portland Street)
297
CHAPTER XLIII
Claridge's (Brook Street)
304
CHAPTER XLIV
Hotel de Paris (Leicester Place)
311
CHAPTER XLV
The Walsingham House (Piccadilly)
317
CHAPTER XLVI
Challis's (Rupert Street)
324
CHAPTER XLVII
Epitaux's (The Haymarket)
330
[Transcriber's note: The advertisements bound in at the beginning and end of the original publication have been grouped
together at the end of this digital edition.]
FOREWORD
THE DIFFICULTIES OF DINING
I would be willing to make you, my dear sir, a very small bet, that if in the early afternoon you go into the restaurant
where you intend to dine in the evening and disturb the head waiter, who is reading a paper at one of the side tables,
suddenly breaking the news upon him that you want a simple little dinner for two at eight o'clock, and wish to
commence the repast with clear soup, he, in reply, after pulling out a book of order papers and biting his lead pencil,
will, a moment of thought intervening, suggest petite marmite.
It is not his fault. Hundreds of Britons have taken the carte de jour out of his hands, and, looking at the list of soups,
puzzled by the names which mean nothing to them, have fallen back upon petite marmite or croûte au pot, which they
know are harmless homely soups which the lady they are going to bring to dinner cannot object to.
It requires a certain amount of bravery, a little consciousness of knowledge, for the ordinary man looking down a list of
dishes to put his finger on every third one and ask, "What is that?" He is much more likely, the head waiter, who has
summed him up, prompting him, to order very much the dinner that he would have eaten in his suburban home had he
[Pg xvi]
[Pg xvii]
[Pg xviii]
been dining there that night.
Every good cook has his little vanities. They are all inventors; and when any one of them, breaking away from the strict
lines of the classic haute cuisine, finds that a pinch of this or two drops of that improves some well-known dish, he
immediately gives it a new name. It is the same with explorers. Did any one of them find a goat with half a twist more in
its horns than another explorer had noticed, but he called it a new species and christened it Ovis Jonesi, Browni, or
Robinsoni, according to his surname. If you see filets de sole à la Hercules John Jones on the carte do not be afraid
to ask what it is. It is probably some old acquaintance slightly altered by the chef, who has had a flash of inspiration
when preparing it for Mr. Hercules John Jones, a valued client of the restaurant.
I should have begun this foreword by warning all experienced diners to skip it and go on to Chapter I. It is not too late
to do so now. I, who have gone through all the agonies that a simple Briton struggling in the spider web of a carte de
jour can endure, am only trying to warn other simple Britons with a liking for a good dinner by an account of my
experiences.
If you or I, in the absence of the maître d'hôtel and the head waiter, fall into the hands of an underling, Heaven help us.
He will lure you or me on to order the most expensive dinner that his limited imagination can conceive, and thinks he is
doing his duty to the patron. Luckily, such ill-luck as this rarely occurs. The manager is the man to look for, if possible,
when composing a menu. The higher you reach up that glorious scale of responsibility which runs from manager to
marmiton, the more intelligent help you will get in ordering your dinner, the more certain you are to have an artistic
meal, and not to be spending money unworthily.
That you must pay on the higher scale for a really artistic dinner is, I regret to say, a necessity. No doubt the luxurious
surroundings, the quick, quiet service appear indirectly in the bill; but the material for the dinner is costly. No pains are
spared nowadays to put on the table of a first-class restaurant the very best food that the world can produce. Not only
France, but countries much farther afield are systematically pillaged that Londoners may dine, and I do not despair of
some day eating mangostines for dessert. All this costs money; but the gourmets, like the dilettanti in any other art, do
not get a chef-d'œuvre for the price of a "pot-boiler."
I, personally, always prefer a dinner à la carte to a table-d'hôte one. The table-d'hôte one—which is a misused word,
for the table-d'hôte was the general table presided over by the host—has advanced, with the more general
appreciation that dining does not mean simply eating, and at a good restaurant the dinner of the day is cooked to the
minute for the groups at each separate table; but it has the disadvantage that you have to eat a dinner ordered according
to somebody else's idea, and you have no choice as to length or composition. With a friendly maître d'hôtel to assist,
the composing of a menu for a small dinner is a pleasure. To eat a table-d'hôte dinner is like landing a fish which has
been hooked and played by someone else.
Mr. Echenard, late of the Savoy, in chatting over the vagaries of diners, shook his head over the want of knowledge of
the wines that should be drunk with the various kinds of food. No man knows better what goes to make a perfect
dinner than Mr. Echenard does, and as to the sinfulness of Britons in this particular, I quite agreed with him. In Paris no
man dreams of drinking champagne, and nothing but champagne, for dinner; but in London the climate and the taste of
the fair sex go before orthodox rules. A tired man in our heavy atmosphere feels often that champagne is the one wine
that will give him life again; and as the ladies as a rule would think a dinner at a restaurant incomplete without
champagne, ninety-nine out of a hundred Englishmen, in ordering a little dinner for two, turn instinctively to the
champagne page of the wine-card. It is wrong, but until we get a new atmosphere and give up taking ladies out to
dinner, champagne will be practically the only wine drunk at restaurants.
On the subject of tips it is difficult to write. I have always found that a shilling for every pound or part of a pound, or a
shilling for each member of a party brings a "thank you" from the waiter at any first-class restaurant. I should be inclined
to err a little on the liberal side of this scale; for waiters do not have an easy life, are mainly dependent on the tips they
get, and have it in their power to greatly add to, or detract from, the pleasure of a dinner. I always find that the man
who talks about "spoiling the market," in this respect is thinking of protecting his own pocket and not his neighbour's.
Finally—and I feel very much as if I had been preaching a sermon—I should, to put it all as shortly as possible, advise
you, my brother simple Briton—not you, the experienced diners, who have been expressly warned off from this lecture
—in ordering your dinner to get the aid of the manager, and failing him the maître d'hôtel, never to be hustled by an
underling into ordering a big dinner when you want a small one, and never to be afraid of asking what the composition
of a dish is.
The following little essay on the duties of a maître d'hôtel which Mons. Joseph has sent me speaks most eloquently for
itself:
Mon cher Colonel—
Vous me demandez pour votre nouveau livre des recettes. Méfiez-vous des recettes. Depuis la cuisinière bourgeoise et
le Baron Brisse on a chanté la chanson sur tous les airs et sur tous les tons. Et qu'en reste-t'il; qui s'en souvient? Je veux
dire dans le public aristocratique pour qui vous écrivez, et que vous comptez intéresser avec votre nouvelle publication,
cherchez le nouveau dans les à propos de table, donnez des conseils aux maîtresses de maison, qui dépensent
[Pg xix]
[Pg xx]
[Pg xxi]
[Pg xxii]
beaucoup d'argent pour donner des dîners fatiguants, trop longs, trop compliqués; dîtes leur qu'un bon dîner doit être
court, que les convives doivent manger et non goûter, qu'elles exigent de leur cuisinier ou cuisinière de n'être pas trop
savants, qu'ils respectent avant tout le goût que le bon Dieu a donné à toutes choses de ne pas les dénaturer par des
combinaisons, qui à force d'être raffinées deviennent barbares.
On a beaucoup parlé du cuisinier. Si nous exposions un peu ce que doit être le Maître d'Hôtel.
Le Maître D'Hôtel Français
La plus grande force du Maître d'hôtel français, je dis maître d'hôtel français à dessein, car si le cuisinier français a su
tirer parti des produits de la nature avec un art infini, pour en faire des aliments aimables, agréables, et bienfaisants, le
Maître d'hôtel français seul est susceptible de les faire accepter et désirer. Or voilà pour le Maître d'hôtel le champ qu'il
a à explorer. Champ vaste s'il en fût, car déviner avec tact ce qui peut plaire à celui-ci et ne pas plaire à celui-là, est un
problème à résoudre selon la nature, le tempérament et la nationalité de celui qu'il doit faire manger. Il doit donc être le
conseil, le tentateur, et le metteur en scène. Il faut pour être un maître d'hôtel accompli, mettre de côté, ou du moins ne
pas laisser percer le but commercial, tout en étant un commerçant hors ligne (je parle ici du maître d'hôtel public de
restaurant, attendu que dans la maison particulière, le commerce n'a rien à voir, ce qui simplifie énormement le rôle du
maître d'hôtel. Pour cela il faut être un peu diplomate, et un peu artiste dans l'art de dire, afin de colorer le projet de
repas que l'on doit soumettre à son dîneur). Il faut donc agir sur l'imagination pour fair oublier la machine que l'on va
alimenter, en un mot masquer le côté matériel de manger. J'ai acquis la certitude qu'un plat savamment préparé par un
cuisinier hors ligne peut passer inaperçu, ou inapprecié si le maître d'hôtel, qui devient alors metteur en scène, ne sait
pas présenter l'œuvre, de façon à le faire désirer, de sorte que si ce mets est servi par un maître d'hôtel qui n'en
comprend pas le caractère, il lui sera impossible de lui donner tout son relief, et alors l'œuvre du cuisinier sera anéanti et
passera inaperçu.
Ce maître d'hôtel doit être aussi un observateur et un juge et doit transmettre son appréciation au chef de cuisine, mais
pour apprécier il faut savoir, pour savoir il faut aimer son art, le maître d'hôtel doit être un apôtre.
Il doit transmettre les observations qu'il a pu entendre pendant le cours d'un dîner de la part des convives, observations
favorables ou défavorables, il doit les transmettre au chef et aviser avec lui. Il doit aussi être en observation, car il arrive
le plus souvent que les convives ne disent rien à cause de leur amphitryon mais ne mangent pas avec plaisir et entrain le
mets présenté: là encore le maître d'hôtel doit chercher le pourquoi. Il y a aussi dans un déjeuner ou un dîner un rôle très
important réservé au maître d'hôtel. La variété agréable des hors-d'œuvre, la salade qui accompagne le rôti, le façon de
découper ce rôti avec élégance, de bien disposer ce rôti sur son plat une fois découpé, découper bien et vite, afin
d'éviter le réchaud qui sèche. Savoir mettre à point une selle de mouton, avec juste ce qu'il faut de sel sur la partie
grasse, qui lui donnera un goût agréable.
Pour découper le maître d'hôtel doit se placer ni trop près ni trop loin des convives, afin que ceux-ci soient intéressés,
et voient que tous les détails sont observés avec goût et élégance, de façon à tenter encore les appétits qui n'en peuvent
presque plus mais qui renaissent encore un peu aiguillonnés par le désir qu'a su faire naître l'artiste préposé au repas, et
qui a su donner encore envie à l'imagination, quand l'estomac commençait à capituler.
Le maître d'hôtel a de plus cette partie de la fin du dîner, le choix d'un bon fromage, les fruits, les soins de température à
donner aux vins, la façon de décanter ceux-ci pour leur donner le maximum de bouquet; le maître d'hôtel ne peut-il
encore être un tentateur avec la fraise frappée (à la Marivaux)? La pêche à la cardinal, qu'accompagne si bien le doux
parfum de la framboise, légèrement acidulé d'un de jus de groseille, notre grand carême qualifiait.
Certains plats de "manger des Dieux," combien l'expression est heureuse.
Depuis que je suis à Londres j'ai trouvé un nombre incalculable "d'inventeurs de ma pêche à la cardinal." Il me faudra
leur donner la recette un jour que j'en aurai l'occasion.
N'est-ce pas de l'art chez le maître d'hôtel qui tente et charme les convives par ces raffinements, et qui comme un
cavalier sur une moture essoufflée sait encore relever son courage et lui faire faire la dernière foulée qui décide de la
victoire? Après un bon repas le maître d'hôtel a la grande satisfaction d'avoir donné un peu de bonheur à de pauvres
gens riches, qui ne sont pas toujours des heureux.
Et comme l'a dit Brillat Savarin "Le plaisir de la table ne nuit pas aux autres plaisirs." Au contraire, qui sait si
indirectement je ne suis pas le papa de bien des Bébés rieurs, ou la cause au moins de certaines aventures que mes
jolies clientes n'évoquent qu'en souriant derrière leur éventail?
JOSEPH
Directeur du Savoy Restaurant, Londres,
et du Restaurant de Marivaux, Paris.
CHAPTER I
PRINCES' HALL (PICCADILLY)
[Pg xxiii]
[Pg xxiv]
[Pg xxv]
[Pg xxvi]
[Pg 1]
She is a charming little lady, and her husband, to tell the truth, spoils her just a little. Most married dames would have
been content, if they wished to dine at a restaurant on the occasion of their birthday, with one dinner; but Mrs. Daffodil
—if I may so call her, from her favourite flower—insisted on having a dinner out on Saturday, and another on Sunday,
and another on Monday, because, though her twenty-first birthday really fell on Saturday, she was going to keep it on
Monday, when a great party of her husband's people were to meet at the Savoy, and on Sunday her people were
organising a feast at the Berkley; but Mrs. Daffodil said that unless she dined out on the evening of her real birthday she
was sure she would have no luck during the coming year, and I was told that I was to have the privilege of being the
third at the little dinner which was to be the veritable birthday dinner, and that, as a return for this great favour, I was to
order the dinner and choose the restaurant.
I was too wise to take the full responsibility of anything so important, and in a council of three we ran down the list of
dining places. Of those we paused over in consideration, the Princes' Hall was the nearest to Mrs. Daffodil's flat, and
the little lady remembered that she had not dined there this year, and suddenly decided that it was the very place for a
birthday dinner; and should she wear her new white dress, or would the black dress with the handsome bit of lace suit
her better? Her husband looked a little helpless at the mention of dress, and I at a venture suggested the black, for I
remembered that the roof of the grand salon of the Princes', with its heavy mouldings, was white picked out with gold,
while the great panels of brick red, powdered with golden fleurs-de-lys and the palms filling-in the corners, would show
up a black dress just as well as a white one.
Black it was to be, and, this important matter decided, I was sent off as an advance messenger in a hansom cab to
order the best table available and a dinner, not too elaborate and not too small, which was to be ready by the time little
Mrs. Daffodil had dressed and could drive down to the restaurant in her brougham.
My hansom was a fleet one. A party of guests at one of the tables by the windows, evidently bound for a theatre, had
finished their dinner and were just off and away as I arrived, and I pounced like a hawk upon the table they left vacant.
The first preliminaries were soon over, for the little dapper maître d'hôtel, whom I had known in previous days at the
East Room of the Criterion, had the table cleared at once, found some yellow flowers which, if they were not daffodils,
were very like them, and had big bouquets of them put upon the table. Then came the important question of the dinner.
Hors-d'œuvre variés, suggested the little maître d'hôtel; but I moved as an amendment that it should be caviar, for the
caviar at the Princes' is Benoist's, and no man imports better. "Turtle," suggested the maître d'hôtel, a little doubtfully,
after being defeated in his first venture, and as I passed the suggestion with a nod potage tortue went down on the slip
of paper. Mrs. Daffodil had made a suggestion as to salmon which she withdrew as soon as made, but I had
remembered it, and saumon à la Grenobloise was scribbled down. "Now," said the maître d'hôtel a little decisively,
"since the soup and the fish are brown, we must have a white entrée," and as I was not prepared at the moment with
any practical suggestion, having thought of noisettes de mouton and a woodcock as the rest of the solid part of the
dinner, I allowed the proposal to go by default, and fricassée de poulet à l'Ancienne was ordered. "A tiny saddle of
lamb?" was the next suggestion, and although I regretted my prospective woodcock I let the matter go, for we had a
bird already in the menu. "Pommes nouvelles risolées. Salade de mâche, céleri, betterave. Asperges anglaises,"
reeled off my mentor, and I nodded at the mention of the English asparagus; and then to show that I was going to have
a word in the ordering of the dinner I added macédoine de fruits à l'orientale and friandises without requiring any
prompting.
I waited in the bright, French-looking entrance hall, with its mirrors and screens decorated with painted flowers, and
watched the people coming in and going out. A party of smart young men from the Stock Exchange, most of whom I
knew, on their way to a row of stalls they had taken at the Gaiety, passed and chaffed me for my waiting; but the sound
of the band within in the great white railed-in musicians' gallery was cheerful—and an excellent band it is, each artist in it
being a soloist of some celebrity—and presently M. Fourault, the manager, who is the brother-in-law of M. Benoist,
came out and talked to me, saying that M. Azema, the chef, was personally superintending the cooking of the dinner, to
which I replied that I was much obliged that the great artist from the Café Anglais should have paid me the compliment.
Then M. Fourault launched forth into details of the service and the building: how the dishes are brought direct to the
guests by hand so as to avoid the chance of draughts in lifts; of the beauty of the kitchen; the arrangements to keep in
touch with and co-operate with the Royal Institute on the top floor, and a variety of other topics. And as he talked
Signor Bocchi's band inside was softly playing, and I was growing hungry waiting for little Mrs. Daffodil, for I knew that
it would not be her husband who caused the delay.
The brougham drew up before the glass portico with its brass ornamentations, and Mrs. Daffodil in the wonderful black
dress was helped out. She would bring her ermine cape in with her, she thought; and having arrived at the table smiled
graciously at seeing her name-flowers there. I explained that the table by the door protected by the glass screens was
my favourite one, and that I should have taken it if possible, but that it had been engaged for days, and Mrs. Daffodil
was pleased to think the one we had obtained was quite as nice. Didn't she think the room, with its big panels, its few
long mirrors, its clusters of electric lights and electric candles on the tables, and its musicians' gallery over the entrance
to the offices and kitchen, very handsome? I asked. And as she helped herself to the caviar, each little ball as separate
as if they had been pellets of shot, she assented; but to show that she was critical, thought there ought to have been
more palms. Then the little lady took up the questioning, and wanted to know who everybody was who was dining. I
was able to point out a well-known artist taking a quiet meal with his wife, who at one time was an ornament of the
comedy-stage; a party of soldier officers up from Aldershot (and I had a story of the gallantry of one of them, and how
he should have won by right a Victoria Cross); an ex-Gaiety girl who was the heroine of a breach of promise case, and
who had at the table she occupied quite a crowd of gilded youths; a youngster whose good looks have won him a very
[Pg 2]
[Pg 3]
[Pg 4]
[Pg 5]
[Pg 6]
rich but not too young wife—and there I had to pause, for though the room was full of well-dressed, smart-looking
people, I knew no more of them by name.
I was reproved for not knowing my London better, and tried to turn the conversation by telling my host that I would
sooner share the burgundy with him than drink the champagne which Mrs. Daffodil thought a necessary part of her
birthday dinner, but at that moment, the soup being brought, we all relapsed into serious criticism. The turtle soup was
good undoubtedly, as good as at any City dinner, with its jade-coloured semi-solid floating in the darker liquor, and we
praised that unreservedly, but I was told that I was in a carping mood because I stated that I like my salmon as plainly
cooked as possible. As to the fricassée, I liked it immensely; but Mrs. Daffodil, because her shoe pinched, or for some
other good reason, said that she hated truffles. The lamb, the most delicate little selle d'agneau de lait, with the
potatoes and the dark green salad relieved by the crimson of the beetroot, was admirable. English asparagus never can
be anything but good, and though my hostess insisted on my eating a cherry from among the friandises, I left the
sweets, as is my custom, alone.
And the bill. I asked my host to let me look at it, and here it is:—three couverts, 3s.; caviar, 3s.; tortue, 6s.; saumon,
6s.; fricassée de poulet, 7s.; selle d'agneau, 8s.; pommes risolées, 2s.; salade, 1s. 6d.; asperges, 10s. 6d.; macédoine
de fruits, 4s. 6d.; one '67 (Burgundy), 12s.; ½ 140 (champagne), 7s. 6d., three cafés special, 1s. 6d.; three liqueurs fine
champagne (1800), 6s.; total, £4: 0: 6.
1st February.
This was a dinner ordered in a hurry and without perhaps due consideration. Talking over it some days later on with
Mons. Fourault, I asked him to give me a suggestion as to what he considered a typical Princes' Hall dinner for a larger
number, and I also asked him to be my ambassador to M. Azema, the chef, for the recette of the poulet à l'Ancienne,
which I had liked so much.
This is the menu for a dinner of six covers, a very admirable dinner of ceremony. As to its cost, I am not prepared to
guess.
Le Signi du Volga.
Les petits coulibiacs à la Czarine.
La crème Ste-Marie.
Les suprêmes de truites à la Princesse.
Les poulardes à la Georges Sand.
Le Baron de Pauillac aux primeurs.
Les bécasses au champagne.
La salade Impériale.
Les asperges d'Argenteuil Ste-Mousseleine.
Le soufflé chaud succès.
La glace Leda.
Une corbeille de friandise.
Les canapés Diane.
Dessert.
Mons. Azema thought the fricassée Ancienne, the recette of which I had asked for, too simple a dish, and instead sent
me the recette for the poularde Georges Sand, which is a very lordly dish. Here it is as Mons. Azema wrote it, and a
translation for any good people who, like myself, are puzzled sometimes by the terms employed in la Haute Cuisine.
Recette de la poularde G. Sand
Lever les membres d'une belle poularde très blanche bien régulièrement. Faire la tomber à blond, avec un
oignon émincé, une bonne pointe de paprika, et deux verres de vin blanc, environ quarante-cinq minutes.
Retirer la poularde et passer le fonds à l'étamine, le monter avec un bon beurre d'écrevisse, et garnir avec
queues d'écrevisse, belles truffes, en olives, et croûtons de feuilletage. Servir très chaud.
signature
Dismember a large white fowl very carefully. Stew it in white stock, with a chopped onion, a good pinch of paprika,
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and two glasses of white wine, for about forty-five minutes. Take out the fowl, and pass the stock through the tammy.
Flavour with a good cray-fish butter, and garnish with tails of cray-fish, large truffles, olives, and croûtons of French
puff-paste (feuilletage). Serve very hot.
CHAPTER II
THE CHESHIRE CHEESE
I had been kept late in Fleet Street on Saturday, and at a little before seven I woke to the fact that it was near the
dinner hour, that I was in the clothes I had worn all day, that I was brain-weary and tired, and not energetic. I should be
late for dinner if I went home, half across the width of London; I could not well dine at a club without evening clothes,
and a smart restaurant was equally out of the question, for I felt, being in the state of humiliation which weariness and
London grime bring one to, that I could not have held my own as to the choice of a table or the ordering of a dinner
against even the least determined maître d'hôtel.
The easiest way was to dine at one of the Fleet Street hostelries, and I ran such of them as I know over in my mind.
How they have changed since Herrick rang them into rhyme! Then they were the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tun. Now
they are the Rainbow, the Cock, Anderton's, the Cheshire Cheese, and a host more. It was a pudding day at the
Cheshire Cheese, not the crowded day, which is Wednesday, but a day on which I was sure to get a seat in the lower
room and be able to eat my meal in comfort and content; and that finally decided me in favour of the hostelry in Wine
Office Court.
It is not a cheerful thoroughfare that leads up to the Cheshire Cheese. It is a narrow and dark passage, and the squat
little door of the tavern itself is not inviting, for it is reminiscent of a country public-house. It is not until one is through the
sawdusted passage and into the lower room that one is in warmth and comfort.
I was a little late. The man who loves the Cheshire Cheese pudding is in his place at table a few minutes before the
pudding is brought in at 6.30 P.M., a surging billow of creamy white bulging out of a great brown bowl, and then when
the host begins to carve—and there is a certain amount of solemnity about the opening of this great pudding—the early
guest gets the best helping. By a quarter-past seven, when I made my entry, the pudding had sunk down into the depths
of the bowl.
Most of the tables were full, but the long table, at the head of which Dr. Johnson is alleged to have sat with Goldsmith at
his left hand, had some vacant places, and I took one of them. "Pudding?" said the head waiter. I assented, and Mr.
Moore, the host, a dapper gentleman, with a wealth of dark hair and a dark moustache, who had been chatting to a
clean-shaven young gentleman who had the seat opposite to mine, moved to the great bowl to give me my helping, for
no one but the host touches the sacred pudding. The clean-shaven young gentleman relapsed into a newspaper, and
while I waited the few seconds before the brown mixture of lark and kidney and oyster and steak was put before me I
looked round at my neighbours. A gentleman, bald of head and with white whiskers, who was addressed as "Doctor,"
sat in the great lexicographer's seat, and talking to him was a bearded gentleman whom I put down at once as a press-
man, a sub-editor probably. The only other guest at our table was a good-looking, middle-aged man in clothes that had
the gloss of newness on them, a flannel shirt, a white collar, and a gaudy tie. He had finished his meal, was evidently
contented with the world, and there was a conversational glint in his eye when he caught mine that made me look away
at once; for I was hungry and downcast and not inclined for cheerful converse until I had eaten and drunk.
"Pudding, sir," and the head waiter put the savoury mass before me; "and what else?" I ordered a pint of beer and
stewed cheese. I ate my pudding, and being told that the cheese was not ready, ate a "follow" afterwards, for there is
no limit to the amount of pudding allowed, and some of the "followers," as the host of the tavern calls them, have been
known to have half a dozen helpings; and then the brown and fizzling cheese in its little tin tray, with a triangle of toast on
either side, was put before me. The cheese, mixed with mustard and neatly spread on the toast, according to custom,
eaten, the last drops of the bitter beer poured from the pewter tankard into the long glass which is supposed to give
brilliancy to the malt liquor; and then, feeling a man again, I looked across at the flannel-shirted gentleman who had been
smoking a pipe placidly, with a look which meant "Come on."
The ripple of conversation broke at once. He had been out in Australia for fifteen years, went out there as a mere lad,
and to-day was his first day in town after his return. He had been used in past times to come to the Cheshire Cheese for
his mid-day meal, and the first place he had sought out when he came to London was the old hostelry. He missed the
old waiters, he said, but otherwise the place was much the same and as homely as ever.
I recognised in the attraction that had brought this wanderer from the antipodes to the old-fashioned tavern, first of all
places, the same force that had made me, the blasé man about town, unconsciously decide to dine there in preference
to any other Fleet Street hostelry—its homeliness. The old-fashioned windows with their wire blinds, the sawdusted
floor, the long clay pipes on the window-sill; the heirloom portrait of Henry Todd, waiter; the "greybeard" and leather-
jack on their brackets (both gifts from Mr. Seymour Lucas the artist); the piles of black-handled knives, the willow-
pattern plates and dishes; the curious stand in the centre of the floor for umbrellas; the great old-fashioned grate with a
brass kettle singing merrily on it; the pile of Whitaker's almanacks putting a touch of colour into a dark corner; Samuel
Johnson's portrait over his favourite seat, and a host of prints, relating to the great man, on the walls; the high partitions,
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one particular square pew being shielded by a green baize curtain; the simple napery; the ruin of the great pudding on its
little table; all carried one back through the early Victorian times to those dimmer periods when even coffee-houses
were unknown, and every man took his ease at his inn.
The floodgates of the friendly stranger's speech once unloosed, he told me of his life in Australia, and the hard times he
had had, and how matters had come so far right that he was able to come home to England and enjoy himself for six
months; and the clean-shaven young gentleman—he was going on later to assist in an entertainment to the poor of
Houndsditch, he told us—emerged from his newspaper, and we all found a good deal to say. Nothing would satisfy the
returned wanderer but that he must be allowed to ask us to join him in drinking a bowl of the Cheshire Cheese punch,
and Mr. Moore, the host, must make one of the party. The other guests—most of them, I should think, connected in
some way or other with the Fourth Estate—had gradually drifted away, and Mr. Moore, who had been going from
table to table, came and sat down. "No celebrities here to-night, Mr. Moore," I said somewhat reproachfully, and he
admitted the soft impeachment, but Irish-wise told us of the great men of the present day that we had missed by not
dining at the Cheese on any night but the present one. Every journalist of fame, every editor, has eaten within the walls
of the old hostelry, and there is no judge that sits on the bench who has not taken some of his first dinners as a barrister
in the little house up Wine Office Court.
The hot punch was brought in in one of the china bowls, of which there are three or four in a little corner cupboard in
the old-fashioned bar across the passage, and an old silver ladle to serve it with; and the talk ranged back from the
great men of the present day to those of the past. Thackeray knew the "Cheese" well; Dickens used to come in his early
days and tell the present host's mother all his troubles, and so we got back to Goldsmith and Johnson, the latter of
whom is the especial patron saint of the hostelry, for when he lived in Gough Square and Bolt Court the Cheshire
Cheese is said to have been his nightly resort.
The punch ended, the time came for the reckoning. Of old the head waiters were all clean-shaven, like Henry Todd,
whose portrait hangs aloft, and all the reckoning was done by word of mouth. But the present head waiter has
introduced innovations; he wears a moustache, and makes out his bills on paper. This was mine—Ye rump steak
pudding, 2s.; vegetables, 2d.; cheese, 4d.; beer, 5d.; total, 2s. 11d.
8th February.
CHAPTER III
THE HOLBORN
The American Comedian and myself stood at a club window and looked out on London. He was rehearsing, and so
enjoyed the rare privilege of having his evenings free to spend as he liked. I had no business, except to get myself a
dinner somewhere, so we agreed to eat ours in company.
The difficulty was to decide where to dine. The Comedian dined at one club or another every day of his life before
going to the theatre, so a club dinner was out of the question. Not having a lady to take out we agreed that we did not
care to go to any of the "smart" restaurants: we wanted something a little more elaborate than a grill-room would give
us, and more amusing company than we were likely to find at the smaller dining places we knew of.
I think that the suggestion to dine at the cheap table d'hôte dinner at one of the very large restaurants, to listen to the
music, and look at the people dining, came from me. Our minds made up on this point, there was the difficulty of
selecting the restaurant, so we agreed to toss up, and the spin of the coin eventually settled upon the Holborn
Restaurant.
In the many-coloured marble hall, with its marble staircase springing from either side, a well-favoured gentleman with a
close-clipped grey beard was standing, a sheet of paper in his hand, and waved us towards a marble portico, through
which we passed to the grand saloon with its three galleries supported by marble pillars. "A table for two," said a
maître d'hôtel, and we were soon seated at a little table near the centre of the room, at which a waiter in dress clothes,
with a white metal number at his buttonhole and a pencil behind his ear, was in attendance waiting for orders. The table
d'hôte dinner was what we required, and then I noticed that I had to ask for the wine list, and that it was not given me
opened at the champagnes, as is usually the custom of waiters.
The menu, which on a large sheet of stiff paper peeps out from a deep border of advertisements, is printed both in
French and in English. This is the English side of it on the night we dined:—
SOUPS.
Purée of Hare aux croûtons.
Spaghetti.
FISH.
Suprême of Sole Joinville.
Plain Potatoes.
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Darne de saumon. Rémoulade Sauce.
ENTRÉES.
Bouchées à l'Impératrice.
Sauté Potatoes.
Mutton Cutlets à la Reforme.
REMOVE.
Ribs of Beef and Horseradish.
Brussels Sprouts.
ROAST.
Chicken and York Ham.
Chipped Potatoes.
SWEETS.
Caroline Pudding. St. Honoré Cake.
Kirsch Jelly.
ICE.
Neapolitan.
Cheese. Celery.
DESSERT.
We agreed to drink claret, and I picked out a wine third or fourth down on the list.
The Comedian said he was hungry, and I told him that I was glad to hear it, for it might check the miraculous tales
which he generally produces at meal-times.
With the Spaghetti soup, which was brown and strong, the Comedian told me the tale of the mummy of one of the
Ptolemies who lived some thousands of years b.c. which was revivified in the Boston Museum by having clam soup
administered to it. It was not one of the Comedian's best efforts, and I capped it easily by a tale of the Japanese jelly-
fish soup which is supposed to confer everlasting life, and which tastes and looks like hot water.
The darne de saumon was rather a pallid slice, which I attributed to package in ice; but which the Comedian said was
owing to its having overgrown its strength. "And that reminds me," he had just begun when I had the presence of mind
to anticipate him, and to tell the story of the 140 lbs. mahseer which it took my uncle, on my mother's side, three days
to land from the Ganges. I felt bound to tell him that the anecdote he subsequently related of a tarpon, that his first
cousin, twice removed, had hooked, towing a steamer's lifeboat from the Floridas to Long Island, sounded like an
invention.
To avoid friction we talked of our neighbours. Next door to us was a merry little party of three ladies, one a widow,
and a gentleman in a red tie, and the Comedian invented quite a storyette, after the manner of Dickens, of the kindly
brother taking his three sisters out to dinner on the birthday of one of them—no brother would order champagne for his
sisters except on the occasion of a birthday, he said. A couple, in mourning, were husband and wife, and the Comedian,
being in the vein, wove a pathetic little story round the unconscious couple. Two young men, in spick-and-span black
coats, with orchids in their buttonholes, dining with two pretty girls, were groomsmen from some wedding entertaining
two of the bridesmaids. Some nodding plumes showing over the second balcony the Comedian declared must belong to
the "principal boy" of some provincial pantomime.
The cutlet of mutton that was brought to each of us was small, and had suffered from having to journey some way from
the kitchen; but it was well cooked, and there was unlimited sauce with it. When I told the Comedian the established
fact that at the Cape the sheep have to have wheels fitted to their tails, he pretended that in New England there is a
breed that draw their tails in miniature waggons. I flatter myself, however, that my tale of the Ovis Polii, the
perpendicular shot and the three thousand feet fall down a Cashmerian gully left him breathless. To save the Comedian
from brain-weariness caused by invention I drew the waiter into conversation, and, beginning with the band—a good
band, but much too loud—learned that we should find the time each piece was played on the programme which was on
the back of the menu. It was not a full night, our waiter told us, but we were early, it was only 7.15, and the saloon
would fill up presently; and then he drifted into wonderful figures of the number of guests the Holborn could hold at one
time. We wondered inwardly, but sent him off to get us our beef and Brussels sprouts. "When I was out with Buffalo
Bill——" the Comedian began as the waiter returned; but as my only story to go with beef is a Wildebeeste story, not
one of my best, I mentioned somewhat austerely, that our helpings were growing cold. Then the Comedian, who was
invincible in appetite, ate a helping of chicken and ham and reported favourably. Encouraged by this, I ate a slice of the
ham which, with a dash of champagne for sauce, was good. The Comedian told rather a foolish story of a nigger
robbing a hen-roost, which gave me an opening to relate my celebrated anecdote of the Naval Brigade and the
chickens during the Zulu War, an anecdote which has been known to make a rheumatic bishop and a deaf Chairman of
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Quarter Sessions laugh.
The sweets we took as read, and finished up our dinner with an ice, a trifle too salt, I thought. The waiter had been
disappointed at our taking no sweets, but when we refused the offer of cheese and celery and dessert, he was afraid
that something must be the matter with us, for most people at the Holborn eat their dinner steadily through.
The saloon had filled up as our waiter had predicted. There was a howling swell with tuberoses in the buttonhole of his
frock-coat and a lordly moustache. There were two youngsters in dress clothes and "made-up" ties making merry with
two damsels. There was a pretty actress—"she's going to play in our new piece. It's her first night off from playing at the
Frivolity, and she has come here to be quiet," said the Comedian. There was a business man from the north being
entertained by two City friends, and a host more diners whose history we had not time to invent, for our waiter had
taken the pencil from his ear and was standing ready with a little book in his hand.
"Dinners, 7s.; attendance, 6d.; one bottle claret, 4s. 6d.; total, 12s." That was the bill our waiter gave us, and he said
"Thank you" very heartily for a shilling for himself.
I should have appreciated my dinner more if the Comedian had confined his conversation to facts.
I regret to hear that the Comedian permitted himself to say, next day, at the Club that it was a thousand pities that I
could not tell a story without exaggeration.
15th February.
CHAPTER IV
ROMANO'S
Sometimes after a period of depression one wants a tonic in dinners, as one does in health. My gastronomic malady had
been a family feast at which I had sat next to a maiden aunt who, after telling me that I was getting unpleasantly fat,
recounted anecdotes of my infancy and childhood all tending to prove that I was the most troublesome baby and worst
conducted small boy that ever was. Something had to be done to banish that maiden aunt and her anecdotes from my
memory. The happy thought came to me that, as the antidote, I had better, as I wanted cheering up, ask Miss Dainty, of
the principal London theatres, to be kind enough to come out and dine at any time and at any restaurant she chose to
name. I sent my humble invitation by express early in the day, and received her answer by telegram:—"Yes. Romano's.
Eight. See I have my pet table. I have been given a beautiful poodle—Dainty. Be good, and you will be happy."
At luncheon time I strolled down to the restaurant, the butter-coloured front of which looks on to the Strand, and the
proprietor, "the Roman," as he is called by the habitués of the establishment, being out, I took Signor Antonelli, his
second in command, into my confidence, secured the table next to the door, sheltered by a glass screen from the
draught, which I knew to be Miss Dainty's pet one, and proceeded to order dinner. Antonelli—I must drop the Signor
—who has all the appearance of a cavalry colonel, led off with hors-d'œuvre. I followed with, as a suggestion for soup,
crème Pink 'Un, a soup named after a light-hearted journal which practically made "the Roman's" fortune for him.
Then, as there were some beautiful trout in the house, the only question was as to the cooking of them. Truite au bleu,
my first thought, was too simple. Truite Chambord, the amendment moved by Antonelli, was too rich; so we
compromised by Truite Meunière, in the sauce of which the lemon counteracts the butter. Côtelettes de mouton
Sefton was Antonelli's suggestion, and was carried unanimously; but I altered his pheasant, which sounded greedy for
two people, into a perdreau en casserole. Salad, of course. Then, taken with a fit of parsimony, I refused to let English
asparagus go down on the slip of paper, and ordered instead artichauts hollandais. Vanilla ice en corbeille and petits
fours wound up my menu.
When the handsome lady arrived—only ten minutes late—she swept like a whirlwind through the hall—past the flower-
stall, where I had intended to ask her to pause and choose what flowers she would—in a dress which was a dream of
blue with a constellation of diamonds on it, and as she settled down into her seat at the table, not quite certain whether
to keep on the blue velvet and ermine cloak or let it drop, I was told the first instalment of her news at express speed. I
need not look a crosspatch because she was late, the pretty lady said. It was the fault of the cabman, who was drunk,
and had driven her half-way down Oxford Street. What was a good name for a poodle? The one she had been given
was the dearest creature in the world. It had bitten all the claws off the Polar bear skin in the drawing-room, had eaten
up a new pair of boots from Paris, had hunted the cat all along the balcony, breaking two of the blue pots the
evergreens were in, and had dragged all the feathers out of the...
